My Creative Apathy

The adult alarm has been silenced*

Surprisingly absent from the insane Michael Jackson coverage this afternoon and evening has been any reference to his er umm… how do I say this?… indescretions with young boys.  I know the guy just died and you want to be respectful but listening to newscasters blabber on about how Michael Jackson’s legacy will be that “he took the music we heard with our ears and put movement to it” (actual lame quote I heard today) without any reference to the fact that this dude was STRAIGHT UP CREEPY!!!!!! seems like an instant case of revisionist history.  

The King of Pop died long ago and some bleached out sea horse looking guy has been masquerading as Michael Jackson.  RIP (I guess)

*My post title is a reference to allegations that ol’ Whacko Jacko had an alarm installed in his house that would alert him if any adults were coming while he lie in bed pretending to be Peter Pan with his Lost Boys.  This alleged alarm has become immortalized by Jim Rome on his radio show.

The Beatles: Rock Band Trailer

I was going to get this anyway but now after watching the trailer I CANNOT WAIT to get this.

IGN Video: The Beatles: Rock Band Nintendo Wii Trailer - E3 2009: Rock On Trailer

(via addthis)

My first Dodgers post of the season

The Dodgers have already won 30 games, Manny has already been suspended for 50, and I still haven’t said a peep about the Dodgers this season (at least on this blog).  You can always count on me to be negative about my team even though they have had the best record in the major leagues for most of the season!

First let me say that the biggest issue with the Dodgers last season was hitting with runners in scoring position (RISP for us stat dorks).  That is of course until July 31st when they made the trade for Manny and all of a sudden the Dodgers had a guy who actually knew what to do when he saw a runner on 2nd or 3rd.  (Unfortunately that same guy also knew what to do with a steroid needle, and is now relaxing in Florida while the rest of his team moves on without him).

Second, the old baseball adage that “a walk is as good as a hit” is simply not true in certain situations.  In fact this is the case in most situations that Andre Ethier and Russell Martin come up in.  It seems to me every time the Dodgers need a clutch base hit with RISP from the middle of their lineup, these guys are up their working the count like they are a leadoff guy.  They are both in the top 25 in walks this season and it isn’t because pitchers are pitching around them.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but as the Dodgers have returned to pre-Manny form with RISP, including Friday night’s atrocious 1 for 14 with RISP, they need somebody to start swinging the bat, even if it is just a sac fly here and there.

Most egregious offense from Fridays game:  Bottom 5th, 1-1.  Juan Pierre singles, Furcal doubles.  Second and third and nobody out.  To not score a run in this situation is Baseball death.  Next batter Orlando Hudson.  He has his worst at bat of the season.  (An aside is appropraite here as some baseball subtelty needs to be explained.  This is the perfect situation for a “good out”.  You have seen players greet a guy with high fives in the dugout after he grounds out to second or flies out to right field.  This is because he made a good out, an out that produces a run, or even moves a runner into scoring position.)  

So does Orlando Hudson do this?  Does he choke up, and swing slightly early in order to hit a ground ball to the right side and bring a run home?  Of course not, HE GROUNDS OUT TO THE PITCHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But it’s ok because that is only the first out.  Two more to go.  Next up, Andre Ethier.  Who walks.  This is a perfect “a walk is NOT as good as a hit” situation.  A walk=no runs, a hit=2 runs.  Martin strikes out, Loney grounds out, inning over.  Simply awful.

Most egregious offense from Saturdays game- Bottom 9th, 4-4.  Furcal with a lead off walk.  Hudson comes up and grounds out to the first baseman, forcing Furcal at 2nd.  Where is the bunt?  This was Torre’s worst decision of the season so far (at least that I have seen).  Bunt the guy over!  You need one run to win.  You need a “good out” in this situation.  (BTW, this is the most frustrating part of any Dodgers-Angels series is watching a bunch of ex-Dodgers out-manage and out-coach the Dodgers every time.) Then Shields throws one down the right field line on a pickoff attempt and Hudson goes all the way to third.  Game-winning run on third, 1 out.  Angels bring in a 5th infielder from the outfield.  Here is a chance for a “good out”, in fact a game-winning out.  Hit a fly ball past the infield and you win!  Some rookie in his second major league AB comes up and DOESN”T EVEN SWING THE BAT.  STRIKES OUT LOOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I almost threw my remote through my TV.

The Dodgers won in the bottom of the 10th on a basesloaded walk.  In that situation, a walk is as good as a hit, although somewhat less exciting.  (And BTW, players should not be aloud to run out and mob a guy on a walkoff walk, it just doesn’t seem right.  ”Way to not swing the bat!!! Woohoo!”)

I am not watching today’s game for fear of having to watch the Dodgers get 10 hits and 7 walks in an inning and fail to score a run.  

My top 10 "Desert Island" albums- number 4

“Au contraire mon frere, don’t you even go there
Me without a mic is like a beat without a snare
I dare to tear into your ego, we go, way back
Like some ganja and palequo or colecovision
My minds make incisions in your anatomy
And I back this with deuteronomy or leviticus
God made this word, you can’t get with this
Sweet like licorice, dangerous like syphillis”

Fugees - How Many Mics?

I am not a huge hip-hop head but I love and respect the music and wish my hip-hop collection was bigger, especially after taking a class on the Theology of Hip-Hop culture at Fuller awhile back.  This is my favorite hip-hop record and like many of the other records on my list there is some sentimentality with this selection.

I remember my Jr. year of high school driving down to Huntington Beach with my friend Brian and when we got there we would cruise down Main Street blaring Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince out of the speakers of his beat down car.  Of course we were having fun mocking all of the people who would spend tons of money on their stereo system and drive up and down that street just to be seen and heard.  On the way there and back however I remember that we would listen to the Fugees and I fell in love with this record.

As a Jr. in High School I remember loving the fact that each member of the group (Wyclef Jean, Pras Michel and Lauryn Hill) each had a very unique vocal style.  I loved the covers of Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry and Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly.  I loved the way that they told stories through their music and were much more socially conscious than most other rap and hip-hop my friends and I were listening to.  And I loved being exposed to music that was much different than what I had grown up listening to and enjoying.  My musical tastes were expanding and the Fugees were leading the way.

The album opens with How Many Mics? and Lauryn Hill’s verse on this track (lyrics above) immediately shows she is right at home with the big boys of rap.  I don’t think it was until after her solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill came out (another great album) that I really began to appreciate her contribution to the Fugees.  I was much more of a Wyclef guy back then, and of course he has gone on to have a succesful career as a solo artist and producer (his first solo record, The Carnival, is probably my second favorite hip-hop record).

The next track Ready or Not I believe was one of the singles from the album (I know they did a really elaborate music video for it) and it opens with a hauntingly eerie melody that is a sample of the Enya song Boadicea (which I didn’t know until I read a review of this album on Amazon tonight).  The song is a perfect example of what made the Fugees stand out from the crowd.

Fu-Gee-La and Cowboys are also stand out tracks but the cover of Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry is brilliant.  Wyclef would get to show off his love of reggae more on his later solo records but this cover does exactly what a good cover should do, bring the listener to a new appreciation of the original recording.

My favorite part of this record is that no matter how long it has been since I have listened to it, I can put it on and rap along with the words of the whole record, the lyrics are that ingrained into some weird synapses of my brain that were created when I was a Jr in high school in 1996.

Sadly, even though this album would go on to sell over 18 million copies, the Fugees have not recorded another album since.  I would give my right arm for the group to put aside their differences and put out another record.

You can buy The Score on iTunes or here.